Flash Friday- “Re-grow, Together”

This week’s prompt over at flash friday was “friendship” along with the picture below. Hope you enjoy my take on it!

Rose Biodo, Philadelphia, 10 years old. Working 3 summers, minds baby and carries berries, two pecks at a time.” Photo by Lewis Hine, National Archives public domain.

Re-Grow, Together

There was a time, mama says, when people feared that nothing would ever grow again. A decade of winter. Soil burned and poisoned. The inescapable mantle of ash strangling even the hardiest of green life. Most of the people died with them. Starvation, disease, or maybe just heartbreak. They did not realize it til it was gone, but this planet is the first and truest friend we’ll ever have.

It started slow, mama says, around the time I was born. As I fought for life, brave little chutes were fighting too. They battled toxins, and faced down darkness til at last they pierced the surface. Blades of grass, then wildflowers, even berries. Tiny, shrunken things at first, more grit than fruit. But miracles nonetheless.

Now the berry patches are vast, the fruit tart but meaty. There’s so many I dare to harvest two whole crates full. But we’ll make sure to plant the seeds, this time nothing goes to waste.